Not so much a next legendary, championship-winning, ultimate-leading, two-minute-drill-perfecting quarterback. … Just a quarterback who looks like him. … Tall, back in the pocket, feet planted, arm cocked at the ideal angle with the ball above the ear, ready to whiz a 50-yard bullet downfield.

One could make a case that no major sport in this country has changed as much as pro football has in the last, oh, five decades. Yet when it comes to how positions are evaluated by NFL teams – executives, scouts and coaches – none is as stuck in the past as quarterbacks.

If you’re looking for a reason why some quarterbacks enter the league under the cloud of switching to another position – wide receiver, tight end, cornerback, running back, kick returner, “slash,” you name it – that’s it.

Thus, meet Terrelle Pryor, a quarterback his entire life, a pretty good one in college, maybe or maybe not with potential to be a decent one in the pros … but being considered a better prospect at wide receiver or tight end because he’s big and fast.

Sure, why not? Because the last thing you want your quarterback to be is big and fast.

How can this still be happening in the National Football League in the second decade of the 21st century? How many more times do we have to see this inexplicable contrast: In the spring and summer, the bullheaded search for a quarterback who fits a mold created during the Eisenhower administration; then in the fall and winter, success by quarterbacks who totally break the mold?

Year after year, quarterbacks who had been deemed too short, with arms that are too weak, who ran too much in college, who didn’t come from a “pro-style” offense, who have unorthodox throwing motions, even who are too “athletic” – they all find ways to win. Which is the only characteristic a quarterback should need.

Have any two winning quarterbacks in the history of the league ever played the exact same way? Joe Montana didn’t have a howitzer for an arm, and neither did Steve Young. Dan Marino was as immobile as John Elway was mobile. You can’t compare how Brett Favre played to how Tom Brady plays, or Peyton Manning to Ben Roethlisberger, or Joe Namath to Drew Brees, or Steve McNair to Ken Stabler, or Terry Bradshaw to Donovan McNabb, or Michael Vick to Warren Moon … OK, how much farther does this have to go?

It’s as if the entire sport has this weird mental block, one that’s lasted for a good half a century, yet is restricted to one position. You don’t see coaches stroke their chins and say, “You run pretty well for a nose tackle. Let’s try you out at tailback.”

And even though Pryor is the latest example, it’s the latest only by about a year. In the very same division in which he’ll play, now that he’s entered the league with the Raiders, the Broncos are in a quandary over Tim Tebow. “Bust!” many in his nationwide legion of naysayers scream today, as he falls to third-string behind Brady Quinn. Well, another regime in Denver made Tebow a first-round pick; he didn’t draft himself.

You also only have to move up one spot on that depth chart to aim that same slight: Brady Quinn was much more out of Central Casting than Tebow ever has been, was also a first-round pick, and also has done zilch, during a longer career.

Glance back over to the Raiders. While Pryor’s future is being scrutinized as if he were the first pick in the draft rather than a third-round pick in the supplemental draft, he will compete against not one, but two former first-round picks, starter Jason Campbell and backup Kyle Boller, as well as Trent Edwards, a one-time third-rounder. All are on at least their second teams (Boller and Edwards their third). Translation: at least one other team has already made a mistake on them.

Boller became a first-rounder in Baltimore in 2003 because of – you guessed – a cannon arm. It’s like being a 7-foot basketball player. Coaches and teams always figure as long as there’s that to start with, the rest can be worked out.

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Tebow has unique skills that don’t fit the mold. Vick does too. So did Steve Young. So does Pryor. Creating an offense that takes advantage of those skills is not an illogical conclusion to reach. To NFL minds, though, it’s completely out of the box.

Far more logical? Switching those players – who have developed and sharpened the myriad of skills needed to play the most complex and complicated position in all of sports – to another position entirely. At the highest level of the sport, as rookies, after a lifetime of quarterbacking. Because, you know, they can run. “Hey, I bet Vick can be a running back! I bet Tebow can be a tight end! I bet Pryor can be a wideout!”

Players at those positions must be constantly rolling their eyes at the disrespect shown to their unique craft. To think anybody with a good 40 time can be dumped into their group and pick things up right away … where does that kind of thinking come from?

As well as this kind of thinking: If the aforementioned speed-burner is trusted to negotiate a transition that extreme on the fly, why can’t they be trusted to master the quarterback position itself?

Decades of talent has been thrown away because of this. Might Tony Dungy have been a better quarterback than cornerback in the 1970s? Might Matt Jones have been better at his natural position than as a wide receiver in the 2000s? Might Josh Cribbs or Armanti Edwards both have done something special as a quarterback? Might Denard Robinson be wasting his time even playing the position in college, if this goes where it’s usually headed?

Might we never see the true potential of Tebow or Pryor because they could end up running pass patterns instead of throwing to them?

Can we just let Johnny U be Johnny U, and allow those who follow him find a path of their own?